By Flint Wheeler
According to the folks at William Hill US, a popular Las Vegas sportsbook, the Patriots winning, covering and hitting the over led to a “fitting end to a terrible pro football season.”
“For Nevada’s largest sports book operator, William Hill, it was a fitting end to a terrible pro football season,” a spokesman said during Monday Pregame.Com podcast. “The Patriots, trailing 28-9, were available at 16/1 (+1600) on the LIVE InPlay Money Line, and their comeback was very profitable for the majority of bettors.
“The favorite covered. The total went over. All the popular props cashed.”
Most of the public money heading into Super Bowl LI was firmly on the Patriots. The line never budged off Patriots -3, but the money kept pouring in on New England. There was plenty of money on the under, but the public money was largely on the over, with the Pats and the over being a popular pair of bets (the favorite and the over are typically where the public goes in these big games).
But it wasn’t just those bets that hit. The Patriots paid 16-to-1 odds from when they trailed 28-9, and according to William Hill there were “triple digit” tickets (literally hundreds of them) on the Pats when they were 10-to-1 or higher. A $10 ticket on the pats at 10-to-1 would pay out $100.
The books got hammered by Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl LI MVP award as well. Brady was 6-to-5 to win the MVP, and he attracted “more than double the total of dollars” of anyone else that was available.
Stephen Gostkowski’s missed extra point had ramifications too. The Patriots were forced to try multiple two-point conversions, and there was a ton of money on that happening. It was a “very popular prop” bet and “96 percent of the total number of tickets” were on “Yes.” There were also a ton of bets on whether there would be a missed extra point, and 87 percent of them had “Yes,” which paid off +250.
The overtime period killed Vegas too. It was another “very popular prop,” and betting “Yes” on overtime paid 11-to-2, with 85 percent of the tickets on “Yes.”
Julian Edelman attempting a pass blasted the books, because 96 percent of the tickets at William Hill were on the over (2.5) of players to attempt a pass. With Matt Ryan, Brady and Edelman all attempting one, the bet paid off at +110.
The Patriots didn’t even help out Vegas when they were bad either. The Brady interception that was returned for a score by Robert Alford cashed two tickets, including the 85 percent of the bets on Brady throwing a pick that were on “Yes,” which paid +110.
There are more incidents of the books getting hammered, which just goes to show you how bad a Super Bowl outcome it was for Las Vegas. For a while there it looked like they were going to make back all the money lost on the playoffs, when favorites covered in a bunch of blowouts and the only two underdog winners were popular public picks, but in the end it flipped back against Vegas. Don’t feel bad for the house though, last time I checked, Vegas is doing just fine.
